erdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm DMing a group who will be entering the 4E Tomb of Horrors module in a few levels, and I've been prepping a bit for it. Obviously I want this to be pretty brutal compared to what they've experienced so far, and the players are good with that (it was their idea to run it), but I'd like an idea of just how rare I can make extended rests without making things impossible for the party.

erdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Currently the party has a tendency to rest after every other fight rather than risk a fight where any character has only a couple surges left. I'm trying to curb them of by introducing systems that make extended rests more dangerous without having to throw in midnight ambush encounters. With Tomb of Horrors, I'd really like just pick a few rooms where a rest might logically be safe, and then use a way-point system so the party can use each safe room once to rest ... so long as they can make it there. It's the distance between these safe rooms that I'm not sure of.

erdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Maybe someone who knows the module could tell me if the following sounds doable for a well equipped party who know it could be a while before they rest. At the start of Chapter 2, the first place I can find that seems like it could be a reasonably safe place to take an extended rest is the feast hall in the Tapestries of Time encounter (after it's been cleared of course). That's a minimum of 5 encounters in, probably more if they don't get lucky in Moil, and all of which can go real bad for them if they screw up. Does that sound doable?

erdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Frankly, the way the 4E Tomb of Horrors module is written, I think the party I'm dealing with right now will probably all die in Chapter 2, and I'm completely fine with that, so long as they have a reasonable chance to win.

In case you missed it, check out the section "Step and Die" on page 7 of the module, the part that says 'Recovery'. -1 to your max number of surges with eacc extended rest is a motivator to try to beat the dungeon with taking as few extended rests as possible, or else risk fighting the boss with 0 surges. Also, give them a few days rest between ch1 and ch2, as there's a story reason for it. The villain needs this time to develop plans.

If that's too harsh, consider a ticking clock mechanic. The heroes must heal the Garden's corruption before two/three days is up or else the necrotic energy builds up and destroys the place (and the heroes with it). Also keep in mind you can only take an extended rest every 18 hours (or 12 to some DMs).

To your last point, when I played through it, we TPK'ed at the end of Chapter 1, and then Chapter 2 was a breeze.